EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Now, here is a story about climate change that we haven't heard before. A court in the Netherlands has ruled that the Dutch government must do more to bring down its country's carbon emissions in order to keep its people safe. The Netherlands is one of the countries scientists say is likely to be affected by rising sea levels. 900 citizens were involved in the class action lawsuit, arguing that the state had a duty of care to protect its people from the harmful consequences of global warming. The court agreed, ordering the government to increase its target for reducing emissions from up to 17 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, to 25 per cent. The judge said, "The state should not hide behind the argument that the solution to the global climate problem does not depend solely on Dutch efforts. Any reduction of emissions contributes to the prevention of dangerous climate change and as a developed country the Netherlands should take the lead on this."

The campaigners who led the lawsuit were from the Urgenda Foundation, an abbreviation of "urgent agenda." Here is how they reacted when the verdict was delivered last month.

Marjan Minnesma is the director of the Dutch-based organisation Urgenda, which led that legal challenge against the government. She has come to Australia to discuss the case and she joins us now from Cairns. Marjan Minnesma, thank you very much for joining us.

MARJAN MINNESMA, DIRECTOR URGENDA: Hello.

EMMA ALBERICI: How did you prove that and what evidence did you produce that so convinced the judge that climate change is in fact posing a danger to the Dutch people?

MARJAN MINNESMA: Well, actually climate change is a very big problem and 195 countries have signed a climate treaty, including Australia and the Netherlands, and they have said should prevent the temperatures to go up with 2 degrees compared to 1850, and we are now on track of 4-6 degrees at the end of this century. Virtually all scientists in the world concluded this is a very heavy thing and that we should move way, way quicker, so the science is clear and all the countries have signed the treaty, so in this particular case it was very easy for the judges to see that this is harmful and that citizens should be protected, and that's the same everywhere in the world - governments should protect their citizens.

EMMA ALBERICI: The Netherlands is of course a member of the European Union and the EU has already agreed binding targets of 40 per cent by 2030. Did the court decide that that wasn't enough?

MARJAN MINNESMA: Well, they are not really binding targets yet. That's one of the things that we bring into the discussions at the end of the year. But the judge said the sooner you start with reducing CO2, the better, that's what we brought up, because CO2 stays in the air for hundreds of years, so the longer you wait, the more there is already, and the more difficult it is for our children to still fight it, and they said it will not be a cost that you can't afford, so do it as quickly as possible, and up to 2010 our government had a goal of 30 per cent and said that that was easy to do. So the last government changed it all and made it much lower, but we said even in court the state said that this still was feasible, 30 per cent, so the judge simply says, "Well, if you say yourself it is possible, then you should do at least the minimum level that is required by industrialised countries and you have said yourself that 25 per cent is the minimum level and therefore you have to do this minimum level at least."

EMMA ALBERICI: The European Union also operates an emissions trading scheme. Isn't that working well enough to reduce emissions among the 28 member states?

MARJAN MINNESMA: No, it's not enough. We are actually not on the right track, and you have both the emissions trading scheme and the other ways that you can reduce CO2 and this whole together will make up where you end in 2020, and we are not on the right track. And actually all countries in the world are still emitting more and more and we are not on the right track, and the world in which we have 4-6 degrees more is an unliveable world, so really for our children and this is right-wing and left-wing children, we should do much more, and the judge realised this, luckily and he said, "You should do at least the minimum level." And we as Urgenda say we should do much more because 40 per cent is actually what's needed to get a liveable world at the end of this century.

EMMA ALBERICI: If by 2020 the Netherlands hasn't managed to meet its targets, its court-imposed target, what then? Are there consequences?

MARJAN MINNESMA: Yeah, and that's fairly new, too. We can go back to court and ask for a penalty for every day that they don't live up to this 25 per cent in 2020, so we really can go back to court and ask the government to do what it is supposed to do, and that has never happened before either.

EMMA ALBERICI: What sort of penalties? Have they already been agreed by the court?

MARJAN MINNESMA: No, we didn't ask for a penalty upfront because we didn't want to give them the impression that we were into it for the money, we are there for the results. We really are very worried so we wait, and so far the Dutch Government has already always done what the judge has said, so we hope they simply will do what the judge has said, but in case they don't, we can go back to court and it will be a fine that's really making them act, so it will be really high.

EMMA ALBERICI: So are you in Australia to encourage activists to follow your lead and use litigation to perhaps force the Abbott Government to move more in that direction, to take more action on climate change?

MARJAN MINNESMA: Yes, I have been invited by a number of NGOs in Sydney and Melbourne and in Brisbane, and I will be visiting them next week. I will give talks there, so people are invited to come, and I will try to explain exactly what we did, so to give them the opportunity to do the same. Because this is actually quite simple civil law, it is tort law that says you should protect your citizens, and every country has the same basic type of law, so we think it can be done everywhere.And Australia is a big emitter, it's actually the number 2 per person CO2s emissions in the world after Saudi Arabia so it would really make a difference if Australia would live up to what's necessary to protect the citizens.

EMMA ALBERICI: But there would be little prospect success in bringing the same sort of action here I imagine because our Constitution, unlike yours in article 21, doesn't impose a duty of care on the state in relation to environmental protection?

MARJAN MINNESMA: Well, actually this is not based on environmental protection, it is actually simple civil law that every - I think every government has to protect its citizens, and then we colour this duty of care with all kinds of other things, but the basic thing is civil law and tort law that says the state should protect citizens... exactly the same in Australia.

EMMA ALBERICI: I'm sorry to interrupt you, but as I understand it, the Constitution was used to argue this case and your Constitution article 21 does impose a specific duty of care?

MARJAN MINNESMA: No, well - it is a legal thing, but we have very simple thing that says a state can do an unlawful act if it doesn't protect its citizens, and then you have to show why is it unlawful and what is then this duty of care, and the duty of care can be coloured with things like this article 21 and also with the environmental treaty and all kinds of other things that we have signed and we want to live up to. But the basic thing is actually you should protect your citizens, and I think that's exactly the same here and we should see in Australia how you can colour this duty that you have and maybe we find some other things than we did in the Netherlands, but the basic thing, this duty of care is the same in every country.

EMMA ALBERICI: Well, the Government also has a duty of care to protect the country's economy, and in Australia coal contributes significantly for instance something like $60 billion to the Australian economy, imploys about 200,000 people, is responsible for 6 or 7 per cent of our GDP. Isn't it possible that a judge would consider it economically irresponsible for our government to put jobs, investment and export earnings by doing anything that harms the coal industry, for instance?

MARJAN MINNESMA: Well, all over the world we now see investment in coal. We see at the moment in the United States, that 40 per cent of all coal-fired power plants in the last 5 years were closed down and you see China is going for renewables and they want less and less coal also because of their air quality; so the whole world is moving away from coal and I think Australia is a bit laggard in this case. They should become a leader of moving to renewables you have a lot of sun and a lot wind and you can make a lot of money out of that, too. You can have hundreds of thousands of jobs in this field so I really think we should move to the next century and not go back to the last century.

EMMA ALBERICI: We have to leave it there; we're out of time, unfortunately, but Marjan Minnesma thank you very much for joining us tonight.